Like A Fairytale
by emlovesyouu
Summary: "You'd think with all the adrenalin running through me right now, I wouldn't be scared. I thought I'd come to terms with the fact that we probably wouldn't make it through this. But now that we're here..." - Ron/Hermione one-shot.


**I'm back again with another one-shot for you! This one is set post-DH :) I got my idea for this story from the final chapter of **_Athenais777_ 's **'Pictures' – a truly great story, you should definitely go and check it out! Anyway, enjoy!**

_**(This is where the line break should be)**_

On the outside, he may appear brave and confident and ready for anything. However, on the inside, Ron Weasley had comes to terms with the fact that he would almost certainly die in this war. He'd accepted that; eventually. When they'd first started out, he was petrified at the thought of dying. How would it happen? Would it hurt? What happens to you if you don't become a ghost? Do you end up in Limbo? But after all he had been through; all the pain and the loss; death did not phase him anymore. He knew it happened to everyone eventually, his path had just set his further forward than others'. As much as the idea pained him, he knew he would not live to see the New Year, or get the chance to grow old and have a family. He understood that.

So, to find himself in his dormitory in Gryffindor Tower; Voldemort dead, the battle over; was a serious shock to him.

"Hey, Harry?" Ron asked quietly across the room.

"Mmm?"

"What's Sleeping Beauty?" he asked.

It took him a few moments to reply, but when he did, Harry answered confused, "a muggle fairytale. Why?"

"J-just wondering. Hermione mentioned it," he explained, looking down at the peaceful face of his girlfriend laying next to him.

*****FLASHBACK*****

After the excitement of Harry's return died down, the Room of requirement relatively went back to how it had been; just with an added buzz of hope and enthusiasm. While Luna had gone with Harry to Ravenclaw Tower, Ron and Hermione sat in one of the hammocks, waiting for their friends' return.

Seeing all of their old friends, their army, united again, made them almost radiate with joy. Being able to see all their smiling faces again, really made them all that more determined with the task ahead.

"This is it, I guess," Ron said nervously. Glancing down at Hermione's hands, he noticed that they were trembling. "We'll be okay."

"You don't need to say that to make me feel better. This is war. I know the odds of us surviving as well as you do; they're very slim," Hermione said with a slight quaver in her voice.

Ron sighed, running a hand over his dirty face. "You'd think with all the adrenalin running through me right now, I wouldn't be scared. I thought I'd come to terms with the fact that we probably wouldn't make it through this. But now that we're here..."

"I was never scared of dying. I mean, maybe when we were twelve, yeah. Other than that, I truly wasn't. But now, knowing it's so close... I'm petrified. There was so much I wanted to do with my life. And while we've been on the run, even though I've known I'll never get to do any of those things, now seemed so far ahead in the future. I kind of held onto a hope that somehow things would change. That one day we'd wake up and it'd be over, you know?"

Without a response, Ron just nodded as he stared at his hand resting on her knee.

"Do you reckon its painful? Dying?" she asked abruptly out of their silence. "When I was little, Mum and Dad always told me it wasn't. It's like getting a tooth pulled out when you've already been anaesthetised. I don't know whether it'd be the same for us. Being magical."

Gazing off into the distance, she continued, "I hope it's like Sleeping Beauty. No pain. Just falling asleep. Then a hundred years later you wake up as if it had only been a couple of hours."

"Why'd she sleep for a hundred years?" Ron asked, really confused about the sudden change in conversation.

Before she could answer, a rumble from out in the castle grounds shook them back to the present situation at hand.

*****END FLASHBACK*****

"What's it about?" Ron continued, after returning from his reverie.

Sighing, Harry rolled over so he could see that Ron was actually being serious in his questioning. "Well, there's this evil witch and this princess. I don't remember why, but the princess' parents put her under magical protection. But then eventually the witch finds her and because of a curse, the princess is put to sleep for a hundred years."

Furrowing his eyebrows, Ron asked, "is that it? She just sleeps and that's the end."

"The prince comes and – and wakes her up – with a kiss," Harry mumbled, sleep overcoming him again.

Ron did not know what Hermione's intentions had been in mentioning the story. Perhaps she just hoped for a death like the princess' century-long sleep. Or she wanted the part that came after the sleep, when she was awoken. But her intentions he will never know.

If she'd wanted a peaceful death, Ron believed she would get that one day. One day when she was old and grey and in her nineties. Once she'd lived a life worth living and done all the impossible things she'd dreamt of doing since she was young.

_And if she only wanted a kiss to wake her from her slumber, she'd get that too_, Ron thought to himself as he leant down and pressed his lips first to her forehead, and then to her lips, before succumbing to the weight forcing his eyelids closed.

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**There you go. I know it was kind of corny and has probably been done somewhere in the fanfic universe before, but it just came to me. Be sure to review and let me know what you thought. And check out my other Ron/Hermione fics – if you liked this, the others are much better!**

**Em xXxXxx**


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